


Don't Try To Fool Me

by foxyroxi



Series: AFTG Angst fest [2]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Hurt Neil Josten, M/M, Matt boyd is a Physiotherapist, Neil loses his leg, Physical Therapy, Rehabilitation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:40:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27120551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxyroxi/pseuds/foxyroxi
Summary: He moved around the cart silently. It was something he had practiced in case something like this were to happen. He picked up his duffle bag, picked up the sharpest knife he owned and snuck out the other side of the cart, just as someone kicked down the make-shift door Neil had built.
Relationships: Matt Boyd/Neil Josten
Series: AFTG Angst fest [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1976305
Kudos: 19
Collections: AFTG ANGST FEST





	Don't Try To Fool Me

**Author's Note:**

> This one is inspired by a twitter drabble i did a while back. Some people might recognise it from there! 🧡
> 
> The tags will be updated as soon as I'm on a computer, because tagging on a phone sucks.  
> 25/10/2020 Tags have been updated!
> 
> Unbetaed.  
> English is not my first language, so all mistakes are my own!  
> Be kind to others!
> 
> You can talk to me on [twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/foxyroxi_writes)!

Neil was on the run. He’s been running for months, years. He’s living in an abandoned train cart on an abandoned railroad somewhere in Detroit. He just arrived from California, where he lost his mother after his father had hit her in the abdomen with an iron pipe. Her body was plastered to the leather seat, her body unable to move out-of-place by the dried blood. He burned her body with the car and buried her body on the beach. She was already dead when he burned her, so she wasn’t feeling any pain. He was alone now, and he had to take care of himself. He was settling in for the night when he heard something move outside the cart. 

He moved around the cart silently. It was something he had practiced in case something like this were to happen. He picked up his duffle bag, picked up the sharpest knife he owned and snuck out the other side of the cart, just as someone kicked down the make-shift door Neil had built. He ran the second his feet touched the ground. It was dark, wet, and a shot echoed through the train carts. He gasped out in pain and he fell onto the tracks, covering himself in mud. He didn’t know how long he stayed there, but he knew he couldn’t stay. He got up, and he ran despite the pain in his leg. 

He didn’t stop running until he came across a tank station. He locked himself up in the bathroom and checked the wound. They had shot him just above the knee. It wasn’t bleeding all that much anymore, but it was dirty from the mud. He washed the wound the best he could, sterilized the needle before he sewed up the wound. He changed his clothes and then he was on his way again. 

It’s hard to keep a wound clean while on the run. And it doesn’t take over two days before Neil knows something’s wrong and he should probably seek a medical professional, but his mother taught him not to trust anyone - not even doctors. He cleans it with a dirty cloth from his bag and most often with water from dirty toilets; he has nothing else to clean it with. One time he had stolen a bottle of chlorhexidine, but that didn’t do any good when the wound was getting black and nasty looking around the bullet wound.

The wound didn’t get better, and the pain was excruciating. The skin was dying, and the infection was spreading rapidly. He knew his only way to stay alive was to see a doctor, but seeing a doctor would also admit defeat. He was humping through a park when Neil felt sick suddenly. Like he couldn’t breathe. He was getting dizzy and before he knew it he was falling, passing out in broad daylight.

When he wakes up, he’s at the hospital. He doesn’t remember getting to the hospital. He remembers passing out with both of his legs. But he’s missing a leg. The doctors explain many things about necrotizing fasciitis. They had to cut off his leg to save his life, and now he was confined to a bed and a wheelchair. Life was unfair. It had always been unfair to Neil, so losing a leg shouldn’t come as a surprise to Neil, but it did. And he hated that his father had screwed him over one last time. 

  
  
  


Neil is a mess after losing his leg. It meant that he was stuck at the hospital in Detroit. He lost it above the leg above his knee and he feels horrible. He can’t do anything besides sit in his hospital bed and wheelchair. He falls into depression after losing his leg, and they move him to the psych ward for a few weeks to recover. Neil doesn’t speak to anyone while there, but he’s taking his meds even if he doesn’t like them. It takes a couple of weeks before the psychiatrists clear Neil and sends him on his way to a rehabilitation center for his continued care.

Neil doesn’t speak to the staff at the rehabilitation center anymore than necessary and he’s constantly being watched because he’s a flight risk. He once tried to run down one of nurses when she overstepped her boundaries when Neil had to take a shower. He could do most things on his own. He doesn’t need help washing his hair, but he needs help to move from his wheelchair to the bathing chair in the bathroom. 

He slowly opens up to Katelyn, a fellow resident at the rehab center. She fell off a ladder and broke her back, paralyzing her from the waist down. It’s a horrible story, a story that could very much have been his own given how many times he fell down from a high place, but Katelyn had made her peace with it. She tells him how amazing her boyfriend, Aaron, is. He visits her every day after school and he helps rehabilitate her. It makes Neil jealous, because he can see how much better she gets every day. He wants to get better, but he doesn’t want to get better here.

Katelyn tells him about this amazing physiotherapist she used to see when she first got admitted here. He made her pain go away, and she told him how gentle his hands. She gives him the phone number. Neil promised to call the man, but Neil couldn’t make himself pick up the phone and call. He thinks if he calls, it will admit that he needs help. 

Neil doesn’t call before the second time he’s admitted to the psych ward with another depressive episode. He tried to get into the kitchen for a steak knife so he could cut off his remaining good leg. He calls the physiotherapist when he feels better, and they agree to meet once Neil is back at the rehab center.

Neil continues to be a mess, and he continues to be a flight risk, and the only thing keeping him sane is Katelyn. He texts the physiotherapist he’s back and they agree on a time the following day.

The physiotherapist is handsome. He curses Katelyn for not telling him about him sooner. The first time they meet, they talk. They talk about Neil and what happened. They talk about Neil’s boundaries and his goals for the rehab. They spent a whole longer unpacking the package that was Neil Josten, but the physiotherapist was patient with him and Neil likes that. He likes his calm demeanor, his tone of voice, and how he doesn’t force Neil to do anything he isn’t comfortable doing.

It takes a long time before Neil lets him touch his leg. He doesn’t really let him touch him for the first two months, but the physiotherapist tells him it’s okay. They are going at Neil’s pace and Neil doesn’t know if he’s happy or annoyed with him for being okay with Neil taking all of his time.

Katelyn is encouraging, and it helps build up Neil’s confidence, because Neil’s confidence is shit. He can slowly see how Katelyn is getting better with her rehabilitation, and he thinks it’s mostly because her boyfriend Aaron is just as stubborn as she was. They were a match made in heaven while it left Neil to a life in self pity.

One day, three months into the rehab with the physiotherapist, Neil tells him he can touch his leg if he’s careful about it. 

The physiotherapist naturally is, and Neil hates him for it. He hates him, and he hates that he’s missing a limb because of a careless mistake. He should be glad he was alive, shouldn’t he?

They continue their physiotherapy, and Neil’s attraction grows every time he sees him. It’s weird because they have never attracted Neil’s attention. He thought he was attracted to a girl once, but that was only until she kissed him behind a dumpster in Canada. His physiotherapist is tall, handsome... His hands are magical and one day, when he touches Neil in a particular sore spot, Neil lets out a moan which startles him. The moan startles his therapist. 

Neil wants to stop, but the other keeps going. Neil doesn’t say stop because every touch makes Neil all the more confused and everything he’s feeling is confusing, because he has never felt like this before. He’s a different kind of mess after the session. Neil is confused, and he needs to think, and he needs to talk to Katelyn because she always knows what to do. If she doesn’t, her boyfriend certainly must. 

And they talk. About everything Neil is feeling all at once, they talk about Matt Boyd, the amazing physiotherapist that can turn Neil’s remaining leg into goo. Matt Boyd that can make his heart skip a beat and make his breathing quicken with just a glance. Aaron didn’t have any useful insight when it came to the older man. 

Talking to Katelyn didn’t do him any good, and in a rush of panic the day before his next session, he cancelled. He could hear the surprise in Matt’s voice when he cancelled. He doesn’t tell him why, because how could he possibly tell him about his feelings? It takes a month before he contacts Matt again and sets up a new appointment a week later. 

They sit across from each other with a cup of coffee and Neil’s nervous because he can fuck everything up with just a few words. He tells Matt about his feelings and that it’s very unprofessional of him to have feelings for him, but before his rant is over, Matt kisses him. Neil’s taken by surprise, but he likes it. He enjoys kissing Matt, but Matt pulls back and tells Neil that as long as he is his physiotherapist, he can’t be in a relationship with Neil, or even think about being in a relationship with him. 

So Neil ‘fires’ him after six months of physiotherapy. Because one, he can’t keep having Matt as a therapist if he won’t be able to concentrate. Instead of being his physiotherapist, Matt takes the role of a concerned boyfriend. It takes Neil a while to get comfortable with a new physiotherapist, but Matt supports him and keeps his mouth shut even if it’s hard for him sometimes, but then it’s good that Neil’s isn’t scared to say what he thinks and feels.

Neil moves in with Matt once he’s out of rehab. They found an enormous apartment where Neil can get around with his wheelchair until he can get a prosthetic fitted. 

Sometimes it’s still hard for Neil to accept that he’s missing a limb. But Matt helps him. He helps him slowly accept that fact that he is missing a limb, and that his life doesn’t end here. 

He learns to accept his missing limb. He learns to accept his new life. He learns what it’s like to be in a relationship and what it’s like to trust someone and depend on someone who isn’t trying to hit you or kill you. He’s feeling happy for the first time in a long time, and he’s never letting that feeling go.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> You can talk to me on [twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/foxyroxi_writes)!


End file.
